vogueMeet the Breakout Proenza Schouler Model With the Best Freckles in FashionSEPTEMBER 14, 2016
by MONICA KIM
A pack of undeniably cool girls were darting around a Chelsea gallery before Proenza Schouler’s Spring 2017 show—the Grace Hartzels and Kiki Willemses of the fashion world. Yet there, in the midst of it all, stood a rather willowy creature with a shining river of auburn hair, drawing the lion’s share of double takes backstage. “It’s a baby Maggie Rizer,” one editor whispered, while another summoned up Sissy Spacek. In fact, it was first-time model Sara Grace Wallerstedt who practically stole the show with her surreally beautiful smattering of freckles.
“It was empowering,” Wallerstedt tells me one day after her Fashion Week debut, “to feel everyone’s eyes on you.” It’s been a whirlwind six months for the 17-year-old, who stepped into an open call at a Dallas agency over spring break, signed in New York a few months later, and booked the Proenza exclusive not weeks after that. “I’d always had a big interest in modeling, and when I got older, taller—you know, cuter—I thought I might like to give it a try,” she adds. Wallerstedt speaks with a soft Texan twang and has an offbeat, down-to-earth nerd vibe (her Instagram handle is @walldamort) that makes her instantly charming.
No doubt, much of her speedy success can be chalked up to those delicate freckles drawn over her doll-like face—a feature of hers since birth that has darkened over time, now popping against her bright green eyes. “I was annoyed by them as a little kid, and I definitely went through a foundation phase,” she says, “but as I got older, I realized they made me more unique and I began to embrace them.” Then there’s her waist-grazing strawberry blonde mane, which, as she shakes it loose in a sun-drenched park, catches the light in an ethereal, Pre-Raphaelite way. “I’m really into having cool scents in my hair,” she non sequiturs. “When it gets wintry, vanilla, and when it’s summer, citrus.”
Now it’s back to her hometown of Bedford to wrap up her final year of high school, where her teachers projected Proenza in the classroom so that her friends could watch and Snapchat her in real time. Of course, those plans may be interrupted by the flood of castings and show requests that are sure to come—perhaps even one from her dream show, Dior. “I’ve been trying to develop my own walk,” she notes, explaining how she reviews old show footage in her free time. And where does the breakout model practice her own graceful gait? “When I’m walking my dog,” she says, laughing. “She’s a dachshund, though, so she walks really slowly—it’s like, come on!” From dachshunds to Dior? Here’s hoping.